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'Incendies' Burns With Mystery, Truth

Circus-minimus 'Elephants' worth peanuts; 'Meek's Cutoff' shows how the western can be won

By

Joe Morgenstern

Updated April 22, 2011 12:01 a.m. ET

This is the film that should have won an Oscar in its foreign-language category this year and didn't. Its languages are French and Arabic, but there's nothing foreign about its substance, or its shattering impact. Denis Villeneuve's screen adaptation of a play by the Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad tells a story—masterfully—of courage, cruelty, family mysteries and a chain of anger that can only be broken by love.